Subscribe

Followers

4.19.2010

I'm bringing this blog out of hibernation solely to record the following prediction -- Big Boi's Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty will be the album of the summer, if not the year. It comes out on July 6th and it will definitely be the biggest rap album since The Carter III (at least amongst the, um, Pitchfork set).

Check out "Fo Yo Sorrows," which features totally schizophrenic and amazing guest appearances from George Clinton AND Too $hort, plus some dude with way too long dreads.

Maybe even better is "Shine Blockas," which starts out with Big Boi freestyling in a Georgia Wal Mart while buying footies and video games. A currently incarcerated Gucci Mane only makes an appearance in the video in the form of several black and white jpegs.

12.15.2009

Rejoice, Epic Mailians; 2009 has been a good year. By what metric, you ask? Obviously, we should judge the success of years by the amount of nonsensical references and catchphrases they produce. "But my grandmother died/my car broke down/I failed out of clown college!" Shut your turkey hole, Whiney Tim, it IS a good year because now you have some funny words. Even though they all originated as incredibly arbitrary inside references, I expect these words to pass into the Mailian vernacular. From the mess to the masses.

The Top 7 Words of 2009

7. Surprise Hotel

Astute readers will recognize this phrase from OKAYYYYGUYS's Top 25 Tracks of 2009 list, as it's the title of an excellent Fool's Gold track. Since discovering the song, OKAYYYYGUYS and I have been obsessing over the concept of a surprise hotel, and considering the ways in which someone might conceivably "surprise hoteled." As a catchphrase, though, it only involves yelling "SURPRISE, IT'S A _____" (insert relevant word).

Not to be mistaken with it's generic cousin, "oops," OOPS must be uttered with a guttural, flamboyant emphasis, preferably accompanied by skyward-facing palms, and following some sort of faux pas or slip up. In the rare instance thatOOPS doesn't absolve you of your transgression, it at least gives everyone a good chuckle.

Yes, that's right, it's everyone's favorite up and coming clothing brand, stitched together right here in Washington, D.C. The clothing itself would be entirely forgettable nu-party-glo-bro wear if DURKL wasn't such a memorably ugly name. As such, DURKL is used in a wider context as a general mark of disdain -- hilarious word, hilarious connotations, a giant ball of irony.

Since we already have a plethora of ways to call one another bro, I remain a firm skeptic when faced with new attempts to crack the genre. But a tip of the hat to my friend Salar who introduced me to my new favorite -- Brochan. There's not any deeper meaning, no abbreviation, no back story that I can establish. Just a simple word, on a simple mission. To address a bro, and to be awesome.

"What are you cooking up, brochan?"

"BROCHAN MADE A PIZZA!"

3. Hackbox(+ Additional Uses of -box Suffix)

Despite its many flaws, you certainly get to meet interesting people on Xbox Live. And OKKAAAYYYGUYS and I met one such person this year during an intense Call of Duty match. He was good -- almost too good, to the point that we suspected him of cheating. And then we saw his name: xxHACKBOXxx, in all of its glory. From this point on, hackboxing became synonymous with cheating, hacking, or manipulating a person, thing, or situation. Though hacking has distinctly digital origins, hackboxing can apply to any object. For example, if you get locked out of your house but use a credit card to get in the backdoor, one might say you "hackboxed" it. The -box suffix can also be attached to any other word to add emphasis without actually saying anything of substance (e.g. mackbox, Keatsbox, computerbox, Davebox, etc...).

Bonus points for my ability to convince a stranger in New York to use the word correctly without explanation:

[Having propped a door open with a sweater] "Oh hey guys, after you go in there, can you just hackbox the door with that sweater? I hackboxed it so that we could get back in."

I realize that it's just about impossible to convey the correct tone through text, but I did my best. This particular "ho" (shortened for ease of typing) is differentiated from a standard greeting "ho" by its higher pitched tones, a longer sustain, and heightened wavering, combining to produce an almost ghost-like howl. This word is useful as a humorous greeting, or as a way to fill silence in an awkward or unfortunate moment (similar to the alternate use of "hey guys", e.g. "Sometimes I just get so frustrated that I want to strangle my mom's cat." "Hey guyssss.....").

::Ring, Ring::

"Hello?"

"hhhOOOOoohhoOOOOHhh"

1. Zoop(+ Derivatives)

I present to you the most important word of the year: zoop. I realize that it doesn't look like much, but it holds this spot for a number of reasons -- elegance, utility, and infectiousness, among others. Zoop's primary meaning is "to go, usually in a speedy manner." For example, "Hey, I think we're going to zoop over to the store."Zoop can also mean "to take." "Would you mind if I zooped some of that lasagna?"Zoop can also mean "have sexual intercourse with." "You've been dating Tandice for a while, have you zooped her yet?" But these uses are merely scratching the surface; zoop's true strength lies in its sheer utility and ease of comprehension.You can replace just about any verb with zoop, and even the most untrained ear will be able to pick up its meaning through contextual clues.

Zoop has also spawned a set of derivative words:

-Zyup

-Znope

-Zokay

-ZOOPS

Unlike zoop, which has a plethora of meanings, each of these words merely replaces its sans-z counterpart, though in a stylish manner. Something about that extra Z just flings these words across your tongue -- faster, sleeker, futuristic. Laugh if you must, but once you begin to use them, it gets under your skin, and it won't be long until you find yourself uttering "Zyup" inadvertently in a board meeting.

I believe we have a visceral connection with zoop, as if we were born to say it, but have yet to fulfill our destiny on a mass scale. I've seen the light. We've seen the light. It's time to zoop into a new year. It's been a long December, and there's reason to believe that this year will zoop the shit out of the last.

2. Boston Globe's Big Picture. The quality of print journalism in this country may be going down the crapper, but photojournalism's still got it!

1. Pitchfork.com P2K Decade in Music. OK, OK, I know, Pitchfork is played out, blah blah, typical passe indie fad, whatever. I don't care if it is. This was one of, if not the most entertaining thing I read on the internet this year. P4k's album reviews are still the best written, if not the most helpful (and lord knows with so much good music out there, we need a lot help). They may jump the shark sooner rather than later, but for my money the good people at this publication did a better job curating the decade in music than any other. And besides, this list is the 2009 ultimate argument starter in my book. I love talking about this stuff, even if I disagree with it heartily. I even wrote a lengthy blog post somewhere else about my choice (sorry, shameless plug). Let's face it, if we are capping off our evening with a sixer of PBR and an argument about Radiohead vs. Daft Punk, this is a good evening and damned if we didn't wish that all evenings ended this way.

12.12.2009

As promised, here is the first in (I hope) many end-of-year lists. This list of killer tracks is certainly not intended to be comprehensive. In fact, it's more a list of the best in two or three relatively minor genres that I know are somewhat distasteful to more than one of my fellow Epic Mailers. But in any case, this stuff is sweet, even if it makes me look, somewhat surprisingly, like a total pothead.

25. Black Lips - Starting Over

24. Box Elders - Stay

23. Weed Diamond - Let's Burn One Down

22. Vega - Well Known Pleasures

21. Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension

20. The Mantles - Don't Lie

19. Holiday Shores - Phones Don't Feud

18. Lovvers - OCD Go Go Girls

17. The Drums - I Felt Stupid

16. Fool's Gold - Surprise Hotel

15. No Age - Losing Feeling

14. Pearl Harbor - Luv Goon

13. Memory Cassette - Asleep at a Party

12. Real Estate - Fake Blues

11. Toro Y Moi - Talamak

10. Surfer Blood - Swim

9. Wild Nothing - Summer Holiday

8. Washed Out - Feel It All Around

7. Tim & Jean - Come Around

6. Small Black - Despicable Dogs

5. Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher than the Stars

Just when this band began driving me absolutely nuts by writing the same exact variation on MBV's "Paint a Rainbow" for the 47th time, they hit you with the synth attack. Nowthat the early 90's Creation well has run dry, they've decided to get all Sarah Records, which has to be sufficient for another full length. I hope Teenbeat is next.

4. Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer

LAID. BACK. This guy has been cranking out some of the smoothest song titles all year("Terminally Chill"?!??), and I'm not sure any song all year has me so torn between acompulsion to dance and an urge to recline massively in some kind of sweet hammocksetup.

3. Best Coast - Sun Was High (So Was I)

What does marijuana sound like? Apparently, it sounds like a girl who sounds like a dude singing into one of those Fisher Price tape recorders. Which I apparently like. A lot.

2. Japandroids - Young Hearts Spark Fire

What sealed this for me was some broheim turning to me at a Japandroids show inWilliamsburg and actually fist bumping me when this song began. A tremendous display of noble virility ensued, which I will not soon forget (fist pumping, yeaaAAAaaAAAsingalongs, OH YEAH OH YEAH singalongs, OHHHHHH singalongs). Actually, any song that cancram all those variations of primal screaming into just over 5 minutes deserves #2, easily.

1. Beach Fossils - Vacation

If you've spent any time with me this year, I'm sure I've forced this song down your throatat least 25 times. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a song and thought "turn upthe tremelo on those vocals, dude." Finally, someone heard my desperate pleas. BeachFossils also heard the desperate pleas of my friends when he played this song 3 TIMES at a Cameo Gallery show. Favorite song of the year, favorite show of the year, favorite vocal effect maybe ever.

12.09.2009

In a truly last-ditch effort to revive some sort of collegial interest in this blog, I'm writing to urge everyone to submit two things:

1. A pop culture list of SOME KIND. That is to say, "Top 10 Singles," "Top 10 Films," "Top 20 Albums," "Top 10 TV Shows," etc. are all perfectly acceptable. Most of us are culture junkies, or at least recreational users, so it's time to share the expertise, in the spirit of Christmas!

2. THE EPIC 10. This was probably my favorite aspect of the blog that once was "Epic Mail," and I'd love to do it again (mostly because several entries of mine will likely infuriate Quilliam, much to my delight).

Anyway, I implore you all to consider my requests. You don't, after all, want to be left with only my own "Epic 10" and something like "Top 20 Songs of 2009 in Which You Can't Tell Whether a Certain Sound is Vocals, Guitar, or Simply Tape Hiss."

10.02.2009

Hey, rest of Epic Mail I'm really happy for you, and imma let the you finish, but Pitchfork has one of the greatest lists of all time. (drops mic).

Not to seem like I'm taking over the joint (shit, I haven't even met with most of you), and I'd also like to avoid Quilliam's likely regrets over letting me in on the game, but sometimes genius strikes and you just gotta crap it out onto the intarwebs. Or just go another round of DOTA. Whichever floats your boat.

Anywhom, I'd like to send out a challenge of sorts that would hopefully increase the chatter on the blog beyond the level of crickets (thems some real google analytics type observations). The challenge being in the vein of the cheapest and laziest form of bad writing: List Making. The theme is, as stated above, the 10 Greatest Decades of this Decade of This Generation. Make of it what you will, but you better damn well be justified. One might complete the task with an unimpeachable list of the 10 Greatest Decades, or the 10 Greatest Generations (WWII=Kid A, amirite?). A real sorcerer (or saucier, your choice), might try and conjure the true meaning of the task, and produce the 10 Greatest Decades that have occurred within either or both of the current decade (whose end is nigh) and the current generation (whose beginning and end is somewhere in the nexus of X, Y and i). What might define such a decade is of course up to you, or empirical science, whomsoever bribes you best.

8.12.2009

Of course not! Unless it is the spread on the world's largest BLT! Then, I think indubitably, the answer is yes. The residents of South St. Louis recently wrapped up their Tomato Festival by constructing a 179-ft. BLT. Pat Buchanon better rekognize*. That's 500 pounds of bacon! It turns out, however, that the world record was all a cover. The real operation is that the folks at Iron Barley Restaurant have recently acquired flamethrowers. And what better opportunity to make legal use of a flamethrower in public than to toast the world largest bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich?*It is the opinion of this blogger that in fact it is worth fighting a war over sandwiches, especially if said sandwich is a BLT.

6.25.2009

I gratefully accept the invitation to write for this esteemed publication. Now, I provide a salvo, if you will, a retrospective look at WHOA and YEAH as perhaps the ultimate, essential linguistic element in our popular music and culture. I hope it is enjoyable enough for you to poop on.

It has occurred to me lately that over the past calendar year we have seen a new creative renaissance for WHOA (and its cousin, OOH, which I will address later). The WHOA Renaissance in my opinion began early last year when Beyonce decided it was time to hold a musical seance with Janet Jackson to produce this dance smash:

Undoubtedly, this marks a point where the wizards behind big "P" pop music decided it was acceptable to bring back the onomatopoeia into the fold. It also is what sparks the necessity for this retrospective, as it beckons the eternal question "did 'WHOA' ever leave?".

In the Beginning - What is a WHOA? A YEAH? AN OOH?

At the outset here it is important to establish exactly what WHOA, YEAH and OOH are meant to stand for. Of the three I believe WHOA to be the most basic. WHOA is an expressive sound with no explicit meaning. That is to say I am distinguishing it clearly from the word 'wow', which when sung may sometimes sound similar but is almost always differentiated on the lyric sheet. It is a sound, not a word. OOH is very closely related to WHOA in that it is sometimes used to convey similar expressions, indeed often times WHOA and OOH are indistinguishable. It is these times where it is indistinguishable from WHOA that I will be addressing (it's other use, to which we can refer to as simply 'oh', is more of a tool of poetic apostrophe).

Now we turn to YEAH, which is a little trickier to define. YEAH undeniably carries an affirmative meaning and its use in popular music has a very particular corner. For the purposes of this retrospective, let's limit ourselves to the study of YEAH as it exists to concretely affirm the more vague implications of WHOA and OOH, as demonstrated nicely in the lead single off Jenny Lewis' newest album:

At the root of popular music there are two neatly defined uses of these expressive sounds, and it so happens that they fall neatly into styles of music that were segregated until the early 1950's. From what I can tell, the entirety of high-class continental music from the Italian renaissance through the 1930's was entirely dependent on the syllable "WHOA", and it didn't even know it. See this :57 of this clip from Verdi's Il Travatore as exhibit A:

In this example we see the simple, utilitarian necessity of WHOA in Western music. Also this in many ways shows how WHOA (and it's bastard brother OOH) did in fact predate YEAH in a musically expressive context. The utility of WHOA should be apparent, and its language universal, but it is indeed something different in the classical Western canon than it is in the African-American context to which we will now turn.

Where Pavorroti is pushed towards WHOA because there is no real discernible syllable that could more adequately achieve that impressive pitch, African-American Blues reached for WHOA to express emotions too big for the English language. WHOA became in blues the way to vocally approximate the emotive nature of their instruments (primarily the guitar). While its use was a little more reserved during the Prewar era, the Chess Records set had certainly incorporated it into what we now consider to be the canonical Blues music as evidenced by this clip from Little Walter:

Now the groundwork is laid for the confluence of the continental syllabic utility and Afro-American expressiveness better known to the young folk as Rock N' Roll.

Rock N' Roll Music - This is your Daddy's WHOA

This confluence was definitely a gradual one, it is hard to pinpoint the first recording where both uses are at hand, but I think we can get a good ballpark date. An important moment is the introduction of the classic Afro-American use of WHOA into Caucasian adaptation of Rock N' Roll, which I don't think happened any earlier than Jerry Lee Lewis' recording of "Great Balls of Fire", see the 1:25 mark of this clip:

This recording is from 1957, but it is still a classic Afro-American use of WHOA, in this case to emphasize the rollicking tempo and pitch that precedes the last verse of the song. In fact, it may not have been until the Beatles that we saw a solidified example of WHOA or OOH being blended between continental and Afro-American usage. The lead single and title track of Please Please Me (1963) is really the first time we see it all come together, the use of a WHOA YEAH to both express a certain (though perhaps at the time, unspeakable) desire attached to the ambiguous request that is the song's title as well as accommodating a pleasing, useful melodic construct. Observe:

Here is where things really get rolling. From what I can tell it took American music about a year and half to two years to really catch up from a songwriting standpoint, but one band was able to pick up WHOA, take it to new expressive heights as well as properly introducing YEAH as a standalone musical point; that band was the Kingsmen and the recording was their rendition of Richard Berry's tune 'Louie Louie' from later in 1963. Seriously, WHOA and YEAH are the two most important lyrics in this song:

It's also worth mentioning that YEAH is introduced here not quite as a standalone, but as a triptych of YEAH's. From this recording on, YEAH is established not only as an expressive syllable, but as a rhythmic vocalization as well. From 'Louie Louie' we can also being to trace WHOA and YEAH to the style of music that would become its main residence for the better part of 30 years, Hard Rock. The recklessness of the Kingsmen surely influenced the slowly burgeoning Hard Rock scene, and WHOA was along for the ride. We see in this clip from the Yardbirds, a supergroup which featured hard rock legends Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, WHOA converging with a new 'eastern' vibe and the earliest recorded use of a fuzz box:

Whole Lotta WHOA - Hard Rock and Psychedelia

The late 60's and into the 70's Hard Rock and Psychedelia became the demonstrative champions of WHOA and YEAH. Truly this is where WHOA and YEAH reached their apex in popular music. Both the hippie set and the new fangled metal-heads took WHOA and YEAH to places it hadn't gone before and would really never go again. The distinctive lack of polish and precision lathered over well worn but well constructed blues and funk grooves lent delivered WHOA and YEAH to their home as truly interjectory expressions, appearing wherever the singer felt they should appear. From the hippie side, the true champion of WHOA and YEAH actually comes from Janis Joplin, who never admitted to using psychotropic drugs (she refferred to herself as a 'drunkadelic'), but nonetheless was a hippie hero and 'Piece of My Heart' is a canonical WHOA and YEAH song:

It was all over the place and it was sloppy, but in ways that just feel right. A balance that many after her would try, and fail at matching.

The same year, Led Zeppelin released II. While it would be two more records before they were cemented as the greatest hard rock band of all time, this record unleashed "Whole Lotta Love". The second half of this track dropped the pretenses that were behind the WHOA YEAH in "Please Please Me", understood the utility of an inflexive WHOA or OOH much the way Verdi did, and was pushed by its surroundings to a bigger, more emotive place.

There is very little that is careful about Robert Plant's vocal track on this song, yet he seems to have consumed the utility of the continental canon of WHOA and allowed it to flow naturally out of him in places that clearly mark it as Afro-American influenced. Truly, these were WHOA's and OOH's and YEAH's that you could lose yourself in. They were intended to make your head swim, and I'd say they more than achieved that goal.

Yet, Zeppelin and Joplin were meddling in a dark art of sorts. Quite quickly, this artful sloppiness got way, way out of hand and lent itself almost too easily to parody and laziness began to take over. That and there was disco. Disco nearly fucking killed WHOA and YEAH.

Part IV - The Part Where Disco Nearly Fucking Killed WHOA and YEAH

I can't say it enough, I would blame cocaine for all of this, but that would be an insult to cocaine.

Oh Thank God, Or How the Boss and the Godfather saved WHOA and YEAH

Seriously, disco was some pretty bad shit, people. ABBA? The Bee Gees? I want to kill myself and I wasn't even around then. But thank the Lord for African Americans and working class white folk from New Jersey. There were two acts that carried the torch for WHOA and YEAH through the 70's once Hard Rock went off the deep end and the disco abomination started. Those two men were James Brown and Bruce Springsteen.

For Brown, while at this time there wasn't much innovative about his WHOA and YEAH, carried the torch for the funk interpretation of WHOA and YEAH (also GOOD GOD and ALRIGHT, but I digress) throughout the decade, most prevalently releasing "Get Up... Sex Machine" in 1970 and "Get Up Offa That Thing" in 1975.

The Boss, however, was able to do something special. With the support of the E Street Band, Springsteen was able to recapture the youthful innocence of the early years of rock while incorporating a lot of the unhinged vocal stylings berthed by hard rock. The seminal example being the 1975 cut "Born to Run" at the :37, 1:25 and 3:28 marks here:

In truth, this recording is like a sun bursting out its last rays before it goes cold.

The Eighties - Where WHOA and YEAH Head to the Desert

If the late sixties and early seventies were the apex of WHOA and YEAH in popular music, the eighties represented the nadir. Glam metal gave WHOA and YEAH a pretty bad name, but to their credit they were really the only ones keeping it going. WHOA and YEAH were replaced in Pop by Michael Jackson's HEE-HEE's, and the scrubbed, squeaky clean production values of most of the Pop field didn't really allow for vocals with a lot of fat to them (and that was probably for the best). That said, some cream had to rise to the top, right?

Picking up where Led Zeppelin left off, David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen took Zeppelin's attitude to the logical extreme and WHOA and YEAH went along for the ride. DLR may be infamous for incredibly fatty, ugly, abuses to WHOA and YEAH, but those standalone vocal tracks are admittedly a little unfair. By the release of "1984" Van Halen embodied what 80's music was for most people - fun. Sure, it's vapid, essentially meaningless, indulgently silly and an almost irresponsible waste of time and money, but if you didn't spend at least an afternoon as a child rockin' along to "Panama", you never lived:

Again, WHOA and YEAH lack all art in this music, but it is nonetheless true to some basic principles of expression that were championed a decade earlier by Plant and Zeppelin.

Now it should be mentioned that underground music did not disregard WHOA and YEAH in totality. On a whole it simply regressed to its more archaic, poetic roots like the subtle apostrophe of the opening line of "Losing My Religion" by REM. It was even more prevalent in the avante-garde and African-influenced music. A great reference point for this comes in the breakdown (2:09) of the Talking Heads' "And She Was" (1985):

The odd thing about this sort of avant-garde use of WHOA or YEAH is that it pretty much disappears after these artists leave the scene, only to return again over the last year or so.

WHOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAA AYE AYE AYE AYE AYE, OR When Grunge Happened

Kurt Cobain and Nirvana may have instigated the Grunge revolution, but in terms of WHOA and YEAH the resurgence in Grunge has the other two guys (Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell) to thank for rescuing them from the vacuous, emotionless pit that was Glam Metal.

Truly this is as heavy as WHOA ever got. In its later incarnations, the Grunge WHOA frequently drowned in its own self-seriousness, but early on Pearl Jam's Ten was the kick in the pants popular music needed to remember that WHOA must not be taken lightly. The Eighties were fun and all, but WHOA can go to more places than just evocations of the coital pleasures. The 4:17 mark of the soon-to-be classic rock staple "Jeremy" proves this point:

Chris Cornell, regardless of his reputation, has a voice that was made for hard rock and grunge. I don't think he knows how to do anything else (he certainly isn't very good at pop music). That lent itself to many a great wail but for some reason, it didn't really come through on record.

I'd be remiss if I went through the history of WHOA and YEAH in the 90's if I also didn't point you to the 2:26 point of this clip:

Really this is a point where the Grunge WHOA seemed to be crossing over into rapcore, but then again, the Beastie's always straddled that line between genre's.

The nineties also marks a point where it becomes very difficult to chart WHOA and YEAH. With recording and releasing records becoming exponentially cheaper and easier, its hard to say where the trends really were or to cover all of the bases. I could dig deep into the birth of indie here, but I'm reserving that for the last section. As Grunge imploded on itself, popular music was begat first to a new strain of garage rock heralded by Weezer (who put WHOA and OOH to excellent use on "Buddy Holly"), but the lack of output over the course of the late nineties allowed their influence to be spent on emo. Much like Van Halen and Weezer, Emo bands took Pearl Jam's emotive, brooding, self-serious WHOA and YEAH and took it to its ugly conclusion. All subtelty was lost and what was left was a bunch of whining brats and power chords.

The Modern Day: Beyonce, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear and the WHOA YEAH Resurgence

Now to my real point. In the last year or so we have seen a renaissance in WHOA and YEAH. Tracing back through history we haven't seen WHOA and YEAH in this sort of prevalence across so many styles since the mid to late sixties. And to top it off, none of it is bland and all of it is cognizant of both the utility and the emotion that can come with WHOA and YEAH.

To start with the aforementioned clip from Beyonce. In "Single Ladies" Beyonce puts WHOA OOH through a workout that coalesces the rhythmic and demonstrative emotion. She is simultaneously sassing you about not proposing and letting you know exactly how to shake your ass. It sounds simple, but putting those two together doesn't happen enough.

In underground and indie music, Fleet Foxes got the ball rolling early last year. Hey four guys who can sing really well in harmony? Thats about all you need these days. They have a way of putting an acapella WHOA right at the beginning of a song such that it punches you in face and you're immediately transported back in time to a Brueghel painting or the woods of Lothlorian, whichever your pleasure. The best example of this is the track "Ragged Wood":

But really, they put WHOA to use in a lot of different ways and none of them feel indulgent!

Consequently, the two Album of the Year competitors from this year so far are also connoisseurs of the WHOA. Grizzly Bear has gotten as close to Pet Sounds as any band has since the Beach Boys almost did that one time. The lead track "Two Weeks" relies heavily on a well built and at times circuitous WHOA pattern that is aided by Victoria LeGrande of Beach House:

Whhoooooooaaaaaa OOOOOOOOHHHHhhhhOOOOhhhh WHHHHAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAA. Seriously guys, this is the jam.

Remember how I said that the Talking Head's knowledge of WHOA went underground? Well the Dirty Projectors dug it up! Hooray! Dave Longstreth's compositional strengths are really evident, but this record isn't nearly as great with out those lovely ladies he's recruited. The intricate, innovative WHOA's and OOH's make the lead single "Stillness is the Move" and they'll certainly be talked about for a long time:

6.11.2009

Professor Harold Legume Bromford’s LaboratoryLesson 1:“Taking it to the Max,” vs. “Bringing it to the Next Level”

Introductory Words

Good afternoon, and welcome to the first installment of my lecture series, “Bromford’s Laboratory.” Supposing you cretins couldn’t have guessed, my name is Professor H.L. Bromford, and you are all about to take a transformational journey into the core of science.

As an eminently extreme human being, I make it a point to push limits, blow minds, and generally exude “badass.” Skeptics need not look further than the list of courses I’ve taught for proof. Come to think of it, I recognize some of you morons from my “Chainsaw Racing” class last semester.

Despite my mastery of all things, I sometimes have difficulty finding the right words to describe my lifestyle. It’s as if the English language struggles to match my pace. After a long search for the perfect phrase, I’ve whittled down the competition to two possibilities, though each with their flaws: “Taking it to the max,” and “Bringing it to the next level.”

Prima Facie AnalysisDiagram ALet’s begin our analysis at surface level. Diagram A neatly provides a visualization of both phrases. “Taking it to the max” involves two premises: first, that a discrete maximum exists, and second, that we have arrived at that maximum. “Bringing it to the next level” involves two similar premises: first, that we’re on a level, and second, that we have brought ourselves to the next, higher level, one that is more extreme by some undefined measure.

At this level of detail, “taking it to the max” dominates the field as the more powerful statement. While “bringing it to the next level” is satisfactory, it remains a descriptor of a single unit -- one step. By contrast, “taking it to the max” allows for the possibility of multiple steps in one motion. In fact, it implies that we skip all intermediate steps leading up to the max. In this sense, “taking it to the max” encompasses “bringing it to the next level” and then some.

The Hamburgler routinely steals single hamburgers. I’ve seen it. Last Tuesday he decided to bring it to the next level, and stole two hamburgers – impressive. But the next day, he said, “fuck it, I’m taking this to the max,” and backed a military transport truck through the concrete siding of the McDonald’s regional beef shipping facility, moments later to abscond with two tons of processed hamburgers. It was huge. The local news ate it up. He’s now serving six years in a state penitentiary. Regardless, he demonstrates that the sweetness of taking it to the max renders an incremental, level-based approach foolish. The max makes headlines.

Taking it to the Max

It’s tempting to leave it at that, and I’m sure many of you would rather quit now and still catch the matinee showing of, “I Love You Man” than attempt anything rigorous. But there’s more to discover, and Diagram A is misleadingly simple. If you idiots could stop masturbating long enough to lean closer to your monitors, you would see that Diagram B gets into the fun stuff.

Diagram BWe can break down “taking it to the max” into two fundamental components: the max axis, represented by the dotted line, and the “where we’re taking it vector” (WWTI for short), represented by the arrow. These two measures can be roughly compared to the X and Y axes of a graph, where the X axis is the max, and the Y axis is our trajectory towards the max.

The act of “taking it to the max” is consummated at the intercept between these two axes, called the “Düsseldorf Point” (after the venerable Italian mathematician Mario Düsseldorf, whose name caused endless confusion amongst the German scientific community every time he published an article. Düsseldorf’s 1973 opus Le Leggi Naturali di Massimo, in which he lays out the principles of his max-point theory, received mixed reviews and prompted New Yorker columnist Timothy Bruille to famously quip, “Düsseldorf is oblivious to the astounding irony of his discovery, as Italians have never taken anything to the max, ever.” Incidentally, Dusseldorf was best known for his research on time travel, although once it became apparent that his sole ambition was to send a pizza sauce recipe back in time, his work quickly became the straw man of the emerging field.). At the Düsseldorf Point, we have successfully taken it to the max; we and the max are one.

So far, our notion of “taking it the max” has relied heavily on the existence of a discrete max within a bounded universe, while snubbing the concept of infinity. But can we ever be positive that we’re at the max? Couldn’t there always be something higher? Is our “max axis” little more than a theoretical Maginot Line? Is our Düsseldorf Point an unreachable phantom?

We represent this uncertainty in Diagram B by changing the max axis from a solid line to a dotted line, above which lies the theoretical maxosphere – or, “that which is more max than the max.” It remains theoretical, of course, since observing it is beyond our meager human capabilities. But since I’ve received no fewer than thirteen emails from a pathetic student on the subject: yes, a 200-foot robot whose mouth shoots out bits of Kurt Cobain’s corpse would probably fall into this category. Does the possibility of a maxosphere doom our entire endeavor of taking it to the max? Before we answer this question, let’s turn to our other phrase.

Bringing it to the Next LevelDiagram CWhile our first representation of “bringing it to the next level” is both simple and accurate, we must never forget the golden rule of levels: you can ALWAYS bring it to the next level. Even though we can move only one unit at a time, the process can be repeated ad infinitum, taking us to more and more extreme levels. Welcome to the maxosphere. No shirt? No shoes? No limits? No problem.

Imagine the following dialogue between Chazzie and Dan:

Dan: “What perfect skimboarding weather. Check out this sweet move. I’m going to take it to the max.”Chazzie: “Oh yeah? Well I’m also going to take it to the max… AND THEN I’M GOING TO BRING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL.”[Chazzie pulls a twisted 1080 herringbone sloucher.]Dan: “Dag.”

Chazzie, living up to his extreme name, has just made an utter fool of Dan. Dag, indeed, you poor soul. Make a note of this in your copybooks.

Despite embracing the infinite, “bringing it to the next level” is weighted with the problem of uncertainty. Who defines the boundaries of a level? Returning to our fictitious bro Chazzie, let’s say he jumps three feet in the air on his skimboard. In his next jump, he could reach a height of three feet and one nanometer, and would technically reach the next level, although the end result is fairly meaningless, and certainly not extreme.

Addressing the Infinite

And so it seems that infinity is the trump card. Unless we can find a way to unshackle “taking it to the max” from a finite max, “bringing it to the next level” will emerge the victor. I propose two possible ways of doing this.

First, we could contextualize our max. While the universe is infinite, our circumstances are not. As mortals subject to the laws of physics, we remain fatally bound by our contextual limits. In “taking it to the max,” then, we are being as extreme as our situation allows. In this new paradigm, our max axis becomes more of a “situational max.” Second, we could emphasize the act of “taking” more than the “max” itself. We shift the emphasis from a discrete max to the zeal with which we approach the task (i.e. “fuck levels, I’m going to roll as hard as I possibly can").

A Call to Arms

Ultimately, I’m still uneasy about picking the best phrase. Each seems to require the other, to some extent, like the yin and yang of extreme metrics. And so, improbably, I’m going to turn the discussion over to the snot-nosed masses – what do you think?